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Digital Forensic Evidence

1444 Words6 Pages

Digital forensics are the methods of identifying, analyzing and presenting the evidence found on digital media devices. Due to the heavy use of digital media devices nowadays, the law enforcement and legislations have to make changes, clarifications in order to adapt to the rapid development of the technology. The paper will discuss the various levels of government laws, legislation and court decisions, Federal and Provincial where evidence has been successfully admitted into Canadian criminal trial proceedings.

Legal Authorities for Seizing and Searching of Evidence in Canadian Court

The Supreme Court of Canada defined seizure as “the taking of a thing from a person by a public authority without that person’s content.” It means a person …show more content…

This type of search is considered as part of the normal procedure of making an arrest. The Supreme Court of Canada has permitted two exceptions to “search incident to arrest” which are seizure of a suspect’s bodily sample and searching of homes during an arrest. In other words, a warrant must be obtained in these two circumstances. In R v. Fearon, Mr. Fearon and two other men were arrested for robbery with firearm. At the time of arrest, the police conducted a pat down search and found a cellphone on Mr. Fearon. The cellphone had evidence related to the robbery and it did not have any passcodes on it. Mr. Fearon said that his Charter right was violated as his phone was searched by the police officers. However, the Court ruled that the cellphone search fell within the scope of “search incident to arrest” and the absence of a password permitted the police to search upon arrest without a warrant, as the contents is available to other users. Furthermore, the police officer had reasons to believe that the search of cellphone content would yield relevant evidence at the time of arrest. The ruling of R v. Fearon limits one’s expectation of privacy with respect to information contained on cellphones and also broadens the admissibility of different evidence in criminal proceedings. The arrest must be lawful and the law enforcement must have a reason based on a valid lawn enforcement purpose to conduct the search. Valid law enforcement purposes are protecting the police, the accused or the public, preserving evidence or discovering evidence that include locating additional suspects. The search is limit to areas where evidence is likely to be found, for instance, text messages or emails. Police must also record detailed notes about the search, including applications opened and the search

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455 Words | 2 Pages

They have also said that it is reasonable for any officer to do an immediate area search of where that individual is to make sure that they can not grab anything for a weapon like for example a knife. The Supreme Court clearly notes in its opinion that such searches have to happen in the immediate area of arrest and any such search outside that area must be made with a search warrant. In Chimel case the officers could have patted down Chimel and then done a search of the immediate area to make sure that no weapons were hiding around. But once they began looking all around the house that requires a search warrant. The Supreme Court reversed the California Supreme Court’s

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458 Words | 2 Pages

• Describing Property – The initial term that would have to be given prominence in the search warrant, is describing the property to be searched. In the present case, it is computer and it shall be identified and described. Such a description would require that details be given that the computer model is "serial number: AL1002001; model: XYZ2" and it has been logged as an evidence in relation to the case against Miranda. Further inclusion has to be made of the fact that it is presently "stored at the Anywhere Police Department located at 123 Anywhere Street, Anywhere, VA 12345". • Data related to computer – The second term that needs to be considered in the search warrant is the data which can stored and removed from a digital media.

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157 Words | 1 Pages

In Commonwealth v. Newman, 429 PA. 441 (1968), on November 16, 1964, at about 11:30 a.m. four detectives went to appellant 's home with a body warrant for appellant and a search warrant for the premises. The complaint for the search warrant recited that the affiant, Detective John McCrory, deposed that there was probable cause to believe that certain books, papers, and other items used for the purpose of a lottery were in the possession of Henderson Newman at or near 721 West Mary Street. They forcefully entered the appellant 's home without announcement or purpose. The court held that, the forcible entry without announcement of purpose violates the Fourth Amendment. The fruits of an illegal search are inadmissible under Mapp v. Ohio,

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933 Words | 4 Pages

A warrantless search is only reasonable if it is within the specified exception to the Fourth Amendment’s requirements of a warrant. The specific exception covers the applicability of warrantless search conducted incident to a lawful arrest. In this case, such a warrant is only justified by officers’ safety interests or while seeking to prevent potential evidence destruction. Data on a suspect’s cell phone cannot physically harm an officer.

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627 Words | 3 Pages

[1] Decision: In this case it was found that the officer did have probable cause to believe that the crime of possession of the cocaine was that of Pringle. Due to this the arrest did not contravene the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. So, the judgment of the Court of Appeals of Maryland was reversed, leaving the case remanded for any further proceedings and is not inconsistent with the opinion of the Court. [1] Comment: This case shows a warrantless search and arrest based on what the officer sees with his belief that a crime is being committed or that it has been committed. Resources: 1.

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939 Words | 4 Pages

It goes against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated but only upon probable cause. Skagen didn’t have probably cause to even have the right to search and try to seize whatever Richardson had. Skagen was considered off duty and felt that Richardson was hiding something. The evidence that was found in the court was nothing associated with the four criteria’s.

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425 Words | 2 Pages

(Sifferlen, 1991) The landmark cases pertaining to protective sweeps are Chimel v. California and Buie v. Maryland, which establish limitations when performing protective sweeps (Sifferlen, 1991). In Chimel v. California the police executed an in-home arrest warrant, and during their search incident to arrest, they had Chimel’s wife open up dresser drawers revealing evidence of the burglary without a search warrant (Hall, 2015). This type of search was exceeded the intent of protecting police from harm and therefore was proclaimed unconstitutional (Hall, 2015). Additionally, in Maryland v. Buie an officer seized a red running suit utilized in an armed robbery, however the officer initiated a protective sweep of the home because there were still outstanding offenders from the robbery (Sifferlen, 1991). Maryland v. Buie balances officer safety versus the intrusiveness of the search under the Fourth Amendment by limiting police to scope of a protective sweep to places large enough for a person to hide (Sifferlen, 1991).

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1596 Words | 7 Pages

Riley’s lawyer gathered as much evidence as he could to prove that the San Diego police officer did not have the right to confiscate Riley’s cell phone without a warrant. Riley’s lawyer also believed that because the officer search without a warrant he violated Riley’s fourth amendment right. At Mr. Riley’s trial, police officers testified about the photographs and other sources on the cell phone and these were admitted into evidence. The trial court wound up rejecting all of the lawyers arguments and believed that the search followed the “search incident to a lawful arrest” doctrine. This doctrine allows for police to conduct a search on items such as cell phones whenever that item is found near the suspect at the time of arrest.

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942 Words | 4 Pages

This is simply not the case in the search of digital media because the evidence is not tangible and serves no immediate threat to the officer. Also, “faraday bags” exist to store the evidence until a warrant is obtained and the phone can be disconnected from any network and turned off until that warrant is obtained. The supreme court has, in previous cases, established that cell phones are “minicomputers filled with massive amounts of private information” and this served the purpose of differentiating them from traditional items that can be searched immediately following arrest such as a wallet. But the court held that in the event that it was crucial to governmental interests, a warrantless search of a cell phone could be executed. Another prominent concurring opinion was sponsored by conservative Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. who stated that although he doubts that warrantless searches are truly justifiably for the protection of officers and preservation of evidence the court’s majority opinion is the best one in the given circumstances.

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860 Words | 4 Pages

____, 2009 U.S. Lexis 3120 (2009) , used the standards outlined in Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 357, 88 S. Ct. 507, 19 L. Ed. 2d 576 (1967) which states “searches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by judge or magistrate, are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment – subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions.” The court also used Weeks v. United States 232 U.S. 383, 392, 34 S. Ct. 341, 58 L. Ed. 652, T.D. 1964 (1914), which states that a search incident to an arrest is among one of the exceptions to the warrant requirement.

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876 Words | 4 Pages

The issue is whether evidence collected during an unwarranted search and seizure was in violation of the Fourth Amendment. In the case of Riley v. California, a San Diego, California, police detective executed a warrantless search, by seizing a cell phone that contained private information. While on patrol, San Diego, Police officers stopped a vehicle with expired registration tags driven by David Riley. Riley was initially arrested for possession of a firearm. Upon further investigation, police discovered a cell phone that contained valuable information.

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1243 Words | 5 Pages

An officer could physically search the cell phone and it 's case for weapons, such as a razor blade. The State countered that the suspect 's cell phone could be used to call associates to aid him, which would affect officer safety. Allowing the officer to search the cell phone without a warrant might give him/her warning that someone is coming. On the point of protecting evidence from concealment or destruction, Riley argued that once a cell phone has been seized, there is no need for the officer to search the digital contents to protect it. The State countered, saying that the data on a cell phone, when in custody of police, is subject to

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674 Words | 3 Pages

The judge in the specific Milwaukee case stated that “A person wanted on probable cause (and an arrest warrant) who is taken into custody in a public place where he had no legitimate expectation of privacy cannot complain about how the police learned his location” This argument doesn’t make much sense if you change it to be about something other than a phone. If the police searched the man’s house without a warrant in order to learn his location, then in court any evidence that they obtained within the house would be thrown out. The judge is pretty much

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796 Words | 4 Pages

An officer may only be allowed to search a person 's personal belongings if their reasoning is associated with a lawful arrest and if they have a probable cause to search (Matthews). After it being a huge deal in New York, other cities and states began embracing the use of stop-and-frisk as it began growing around the United States. In the 1950s police officials in other cities took up, and expanded, the stop-and-search tactics by using the LAPD to embrace the theory of crime

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1915 Words | 8 Pages

The following section will consider advantages and limitation of the first two mentioned types of digital forensics: Traditional (dead) and Live computer forensics. TRADITIONAL (DEAD) VS LIVE DIGITAL FORENSICS Traditional (Dead) Forensics In order forensic acquisition to be more reliable it must be performed on computers that have been powered off. This type of forensics is known as ‘traditional’ or 'dead ' forensic acquisition. The whole process of dead acquisition, including search and seizure flowchart and acquisition of digital evidence flowchart is shown on Figure 2 and Figure 3 respectively.

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